


Protector

by knightinpinkunderwear



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Confessions, Crying, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Hospitals, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men Crying, Not Canon Compliant, Repressed Memories, Season/Series 02, Stabbing, Stalking, Stitches, anger is the way emotionally repressed people express any bad emotion, bowling, but given his fits of anger in this season it doesn't seem too ooc to me, possible ooc bcuz Dexter has an emotional meltdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26048380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: Jimenez attacks Dexter outside the bowling alley and Vince is there to comfort him about that and what happened to his mom.Requested by DexterStar
Relationships: Vince Masuka/Dexter Morgan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Protector

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DexterStar](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=DexterStar).



He didn't see it coming. Harry would have been disappointed by how easily the man snuck-up on him. 

Dexter was walking to his car after a failed match against the Alley Cats. Vince (his new boyfriend) (not that he'd ever had boyfriends before) was farther back, saying his goodbyes and getting his last socializing out before they turned in. He'd made it all the way to the door of his car when-

"Dex, watch out!" He turned as quickly as he could, towards the voice of his boyfriend.

Then a knife tore through his side.

He dropped the bowling bag and shouted at the pain, but he quickly cut it off gulping a deep breath in as he moved to defend himself. To stay alive in close combat as Harry taught him to do. The knife rose up and slashed down, at his face and chest, he blocked with his right arm.

Santos Jimenez. A motorcycle revs and Dexter is glued to the spot. Memories of the shipping container, of October 1973 rushing and flashing back. The smell of blood, Jimenez's face, the whirring loud noise, he almost screams. But he couldn't there wasn't enough air in his lungs to scream.

**_Bang!_ **

Both he and Jimenez flinch at the sound. Though it seemed nothing was actually hit by the shot fired, there was no sound of impact. Dexter turned his head as Jimenez jumped back. Vince had a revolver pointed at his attacker.

"Miami PD!" Angel shouted and the man bolted. He still couldn't breathe, even though he could feel himself gasping and gulping in air like a fish drowning on land.

" _Fuck_!" Dexter gasped, falling against his car for support, chainsaws and blood and screaming and Mommy and Biney flashing behind his eyes.

He tried to drown it out by assessing his own injuries. Keeping his eyes open to try and chase away all the red and dark and screaming and sticky, nasty, awful blood. 

He was cut at least an inch deep on his waist, inches above his hip. Jimenez had probably been aiming to slice his spinal cord when he turned. It was bleeding quite a bit, but the slash on his arm wasn't as bad. He'd probably need stitches for both.

He was reeling from the pain of his injuries and had started to wonder _how_ Jimenez found him when Vince arrived. 

With the revolver stuffed haphazardly into his pocket and hands already grabbing at and inspecting his side. 

"You alright?" 

"I think I need stitches," he wheezed out, still having trouble filling his lungs despite the gulps of breaths he was taking. Vince's hands calm him. He wasn't alone in the blood. He was in the parking lot. He wasn't trapped in a shipping container with his brother and four bodies in pieces. He was just stabbed. 

"What did he want?" Angel asked, out of breath with Detective Ramos not far behind him. 

"I dunno, my watch?" he lied, hissing through his teeth and putting pressure on the wound in his side as Vince inspected the one on his arm.

"I'm driving you to the ER," Vince said, with a tone that meant it wasn't up for debate. Not that he would have been able to argue with that. He probably needed stitches and, he was not up for doing them himself. 

"Keys are in my right pocket,"

Getting into the car was uncomfortable. And so was the seat belt. But Dexter was not about to get thrown through the windshield because of the way the seat belt pressed against his deeper stab wound. 

Vince did not normally drive like Deb. It seemed that a recently stabbed and beelding-out boyfriend was a thing that could change driving habits quite extensively. 

At least there is valet parking. Vince practically threw his keys at the attendant. 

They must have looked strange. Two men in matching bowling shirts, one literally bleeding out. Accomplishing the title of their team as monogrammed largely on the backs of their shirts. 

_Bowl Till You Bleed._

It turned out that actively bleeding down one's side and arm made for a quick trip through the Emergency Room. 

That were back in an exam half room in less than seven minutes. 

He was right.

Nine stitches on his arm and seventeen above his hip. The gash would heal to be a scar shorter than the one on his ribs but with more stitches, as he'd been so much smaller when the first one was inflicted. Now he would have stitches on both sides of his torso, an asymmetrical symmetry.

His bowling shirt (bloody and torn) was folded as neatly as one could on a gurney and he had only just got his under shirt back on over the guaze that wrapped around his stomach to cover the stitches. 

"That guy wasn't going for your watch," Vince guessed. 

Dexter swallowed. And that was the only confirmation Vince needed.

"Why was he after you?" The bald man continued, leaning in from his seat on the cheep emergency room chair. 

"I confronted him when Lila was still my sponsor," Dexter explained, Lila had been a bad influence, one he was glad he already cut out of his life. 

"Why?" Vince asked, his eyes searching, as if the answer would make itself known visibly. Dexter braced himself, it would be easier to start at the beginning. 

"I'm adopted, and really fucked-up, because I-...my real mom was murdered when I was a toddler, and I was _there..._ when it happened," 

"Shit." Vince moved, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. "And you remember it?"

"I didn't... until that hotel room full of blood,"

"Shit! No wonder... - _Fuck!_ I was so insensitive- Dex, I'm sorry," Vince apologized, squeezing his hand again. 

"If I didn't know, how could you have?" It hadn't even bothered him that much at the time. He'd been so distracted by trying to breathe and not be overwhelmed by the memory of all that red and the awful images it brought back. 

"Did that guy-?"

"He killed her," Dexter confirmed, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Vince pulled him close and held him.

_Why was he shaking?_

His eyes burned. Like the last time he'd remembered his mother's death, his throat _ached._ And the room was getting brighter and blurry and- _Oh._

He was crying.

_When did that happen?_

He was a shaking, crying mess. He'd never felt so broken. He could feel the jagged edges, the open wounds that let in the Dark Passenger when he was so young. He'd never felt this much before, it never hurt this much. He'd never been shaky and sniffly and he'd never fell apart in someone's arms before.

It feels kind of pathetic, and so so messy. But being held... Being comforted. He _felt_ comforted. He needed this. His arms come up and he gripped Vince's shirt, holding onto being held.

"I was so scared, the blood, the noise, his face, I was there again and he was ripping her apart and I was so helpless," he cried, quietly sobbing and heaving in breaths, burying his face into the shoulder of Vince's bowling shirt.

He's thirty-six and he has never cried like this before, never felt this much hurt and this much comfort. He'd never been this humanly broken. It was all so much.

"You're safe now, we're gonna get that bastard," Vince swore, and Dexter hoped it was true. Because he wasn't sure he would be able to face the man and put him on his table. He'd already tried and failed once before. 

Lila's plan had not gone the way she hoped it would. In the best case scenario Dexter would have let her come to his bowling thing. 

But he told her to stay away, that she wasn't his sponsor anymore and didn't want her around. 

But she'd already known when and where the game would be. So she called that man, Jimenez. Told him where he could find Dexter. 

She knew better than to drive to be there herself, Dexter had already threatened to file a restraining order. (Not that he could yet, but still, she didnt want to put him on edge and show him that she couldn't be trusted). And she could. She could be trusted. 

If only he just let her in again. If only he came back to her. 

Like he did the first time he confronted Jimenez. 

But Dexter never came. 

So she called with a ruse of just checking in.

If Jimenez really did attack him, he would be glad to hear from her, and he'd come back. For comfort, for her. 

"Hello?"

It wasn't Dexter who picked up. 

"Hello there, um is Dexter there?" She asked, hoping it would be passed along. 

"You know you're not his sponsor anymore, right?" The man who was most certainly not Dexter said. 

Then Dexter said something but she couldn't make it out. He was too far away from the phone. Quiet and jarbled, but his voice was one she could recognize anywhere. 

"Are you his new sponsor then?" She asked. 

"No, I'm his boyfriend and he doesn't want to talk to you,"

"I just want to apologize for how I've been, and check in on him, last time we met-"

"Look, Lila, you are not his sponser and he doesn't want to talk to you, he has had a rough night and you bothering him isn't gonna make it any better,"

"Did that man find him? Oh, God is he alright?" 

"What man?" He asked, she was too quick to respond to notice the suspicion in his tone.

"The one that killed his mother. Is he alright?" Lila responded, so very worried about Dexter. Alone with this man who didnt understand him the way she did. Just like that Martha Stewart type; Rita. 

"How the fuck do you know about that?" Dexter's boyfriend asked. 

_Shit_. She should not have said that. 

"I just-"

"Call him again and I'll have half the Miami Metro PD on your ass for conspiracy to commit murder," the man who was closer to Dexter than she was allowed to be spoke, almost quiet with bitterness that she could taste. 

"I didn't mean-"

"You didn't think a man who killed a woman in front of her kid would try to kill that kid when he grew up and cronfronted him?!" The man shouted into the phone. A mirror to Dexter's rage. 

The line went dead.

And Lila was left alone with her tears. And the knowledge that Dexter wouldn't stop growing farther away from her. 

"Vince?" Dexter asked. 

His boyfriend was still holding his phone, thumb still pressed firmly on the 'end call' button. 

"That cold-hearted bitch knew who it was, that guy who... you know," he started, placing a hand on his bald head as he spoke, "she knew that it happened... she tried to _kill you_ ,"

"That sounds like something she'd do," he sighed. Lila was a bad experiment. Nothing but trouble. 

"How did you find her? Or better, why was she your sponsor?" Vince asked.

"She made me think that she was the only one who could help becuase she could see through my bullshit," he answered, a litte self conscious that he'd fallen for her manipulation so easily. 

"Well she's not... the only one who can help," Vince said, his gaze making Dexter feel both good and uncomfortable with a bit of humanity he didn't often feel.

"I know,"

"Good," Vince nodded. "I hope you know I'm not leaving you alone tonight, not after all this,"

"Deb's probably at her boyfriend's so you could take the couch," he suggested. 

"Ouch, no bed privileges for Vince Masuka," his boyfriend pouted. 

"You could, I mean- just I'm not sure with the stitches, and you know I'm not good with the intimacy and-"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, relax, it was just a joke, I'm not actually upset or anything, and I am sure as hell not gonna make any moves tonight, you just got stabbed, and from what I've heard that tends to fuck up one's feelings," Vince soothed, taking his hand and squeezing it. 

"You remember where my apartment is?" 

Vince insisted on driving, then making his bedding on the couch. 

Dexter decided that he would call Deb in the morning. He was too tired to try to argue with her now on whether or not he was alright. And she deserved a nice night in with Lundy or whoever. 

He fell asleep feeling safer knowing that Vince was there. On the couch with his pistol on the coffee table in front of him. 

Vince who would both keep Jimenez away and be there to hold him, comfort him, when the memories came back in awful sticky flashes. 

Vince; his boyfriend and bald, bespectacled protector. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it :)  
> This one took me awhile to figure out.


End file.
